artist's statement by ronit barenboim

The Modern Librarian: A Shusher, Shelver, and Computer Wiz

Whenever I tell people that I am studying to be a librarian, the response I consistently receive has to do with the "sexy librarian glasses". While this is a prominent physical stereotype that I have over-experienced, Radford (2003) distinguishes three predominant activities portrayed in media representation of librarians. These activities are shelving, stamping, and shushing. In examining the visual data for Team Librarian, it is evident that the physical stereotype, of librarians as wearing glasses, is generally consistent throughout the data. Furthermore, while shushing and shelving appear to be predominant themes throughout the data, in agreement with Radford's (2003) findings, there is no images of stamping. Instead, there appears to be a major new theme in line with our technological age.

The new theme/activity being consistently demonstrated in the data is that of the librarian using a computer. This is in line with Adams' (2000) finding that the ways in which librarians identify, collect, and organize information is increasingly associated with computers, rather than books. However, this is opposed to Radford (2003), who argues that "the stereotype of the librarian is one that has a long history and has remained remarkably consistent over the course of the last century – even against the astonishing technological changes that have taken place in that time, and the rise of the so-called information age."​With these stereotypes, themes, and arguments in mind, the arts-informed visual piece presented is three pairs of glasses, each pair illustrating an activity that librarians are recently "seen" to represent – shushing, shelving, and using a computer.